


Displacement

by quirkysubject



Series: Around, around, (around) [1]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: 1974 US Tour, Accidental Voyeurism, Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Groupies, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, Loneliness, One-Sided Attraction, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Pining, Sort of Froger Feels, Touring, Unrequited Love, a bit of humour too, it's not all bleak, on the road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:02:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27102391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quirkysubject/pseuds/quirkysubject
Summary: April 1974, somewhere in Arkansas
Relationships: (one sided), Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor, Roger Taylor (Queen)/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Around, around, (around) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978174
Comments: 45
Kudos: 46





	Displacement

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nastally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nastally/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, @nastally! 💖💖💖 Thank you for dragging me into the social side of fandom, and being an all-around awesome person! 😘
> 
> We talked about this idea ages ago, so... I hope you like how it turned out 😊
> 
> Thanks to @plainxte and @bisexualroger for their comments on this story!

Freddie blinks his eyes open, heart pounding. It takes him a few seconds to orient himself in the darkened interior of the tour bus. The curtains are drawn and the only illumination is the moonlight shining in through the gaps, accentuated by occasional flashes of headlights.

He has no idea what woke him up. A dream, perhaps? Had he even been dreaming anything? He’s sure of it, but the memory, although only a few seconds old, is already out of reach. There’s only a feeling, slightly queasy but alluring at the same time, that makes him want to go back to it.

He rolls onto his back, trying to find a more comfortable position on the ratty bench. It’s the first time that the entire bus, packed with road crew and one exhausted support band, has fallen asleep. The collective fatigue of the first week of touring America has finally caught up with them and it’s an opportunity Freddie is not going to let go to waste. Like his band mates, he’s been running on fumes these last days, propelled forwards by the sheer exhilaration of playing their first US tour - and the determination not to be the first one to crack.

Just as he is about to blink his eyes shut again, a movement, barely noticeable out of the corner of his eye, draws his gaze.

He squints in the dim light, trying to figure out what he’s seeing. Then immediately wishes he hadn’t.

In the bunk on the other side of the aisle, that girl whose name Freddie didn’t bother to remember is lying on top of Roger. The strap of her dress has slipped off her shoulder and Roger’s face is mushed into her neck, half-obscured by the curtain of her dark hair. There is some kind of motion going on under the blanket that is covering them both. She giggles breathlessly, and Freddie realises it must have been that which woke him up.

 _Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me._ Freddie squeezes his eyes shut and presses the back of his head into the thin mattress. It’s the first time since the start of the tour that he actually managed to fall asleep on this dratted bus, and Roger can’t even keep his hands off some girl he picked up until they're at the hotel?

It’s a rhetorical question of course. They can count themselves lucky Roger has agreed to put on trousers for the time they are on stage. He doesn’t seem to have much need for them outside those forty minutes every day.

Roger is in love - or at least in lust - with America. And America is in love with him.

Freddie has girls too, they’re everywhere, it’s so easy. Or rather, it should be easy and for Roger it is. Freddie’s not above admitting that it’s quite flattering to have his pick and that it feels good to have a warm body next to him as he falls asleep. But it’s also work. Exhausting and draining, like they’re taking something from him every time he takes them.

It doesn’t seem to exhaust Roger. On the contrary. The more attention he gets, the more he thrives, blossoming like a desert flower after a shower of rain. He never had to complain about a lack of female attention, but here he’s drowning in it. Even the girls who come for Mott the Hoople, for Ian or Mick, would quickly find themselves sitting in Roger’s lap, as if drawn off course by a powerful magnet.

And that’s all well and good and Freddie would never begrudge a friend a good shag (or twenty). But please, for the love of God! Not now! Not when it’s the first time that the cacophony of thoughts and feelings inside has finally quieted down enough that he might get some rest.

He is about to call out to them to knock it off, awkwardness be damned, but then... Freddie can’t see what exactly caused it, but the girl makes a cut-off, high-pitched squeal and his words dry up in his throat.

“Shhh”, Roger hisses, then huffs out a breathless laugh when she whispers something in his ear. He turns his head, as if to look around to see if they woke anyone up.

For some reason, instead of using this opportunity to tell him to keep it down, Freddie makes sure his eyes stay shut, his body motionless, even while his heart is thumping in his chest.

The soft sounds - his quickened breaths, her suppressed moans, the rustle of fabric - start up again.

When Freddie opens his eyes again - and he didn’t intend to open them at all, how did that happen? - the girl has shifted upwards. Her dress has slipped down completely and Roger is mouthing at her exposed breasts, his lips pressing into her skin. Her mouth has fallen open and she’s gripping his long hair with her hands. Her hips are moving, but she’s too far up Roger’s body for them to be fucking.

Freddie can’t help imagining what else they might be doing. Is he rubbing her? Teasing her? Already moving his slim, calloused fingers inside her? He feels hot at the thought and tries to chase it away. He shouldn’t be thinking about her like that. He shouldn’t be looking either.

But then, _they_ are the ones who aren’t letting him sleep, he thinks somwhat petulantly.

He wants to turn away and clap his hands over his ears, sink back into the blissful unawareness of sleep. But if he moves now, it would be obvious that he’s been awake. And somehow, that would feel more embarrassing for him than for them, although it shouldn't. And so he lies there and waits.

At least this one doesn’t wail like a banshee, like that one girl in Denver, who treated the entire floor of the hotel they were staying in to an unbidden performance. Or was it Kansas City? They’ve only been in the US for about a week and already the days are bleeding into each other.

A louder moan automatically draws his attention again, even while he’s cursing himself for it. The inside of the bus is all deep shadows and dim flickers of light, but it’s enough to see her hands tighten their grip as she presses her mouth into Roger’s hair to stifle her moans. It’s enough to see Roger’s triumphant smile as he looks up at her, face still partly obscured by her tits.

Her movements grow frantic for a moment, everything tensing up. Then she melts into Roger, moving languidly, and finally stills.

Freddie breathes a silent sigh of relief. Now that’s over, hopefully everyone - Freddie especially - can go to sleep, so that they can put this endless, perfectly straight nightmare of an American highway behind them and the next time Freddie opens his eyes, it will be to behold Memphis, hallowed ground of Rock’n’Ro-

The sound of a zip being opened is never an especially subtle one. In the middle of the night, on a quiet tour bus, it might as well be a bomb going off.

Freddie barely holds in his frustrated groan. What has he done to deserve this?

He should say something. He really should. He has put up with this long enough. They are the rude ones, not him. And it’s not as if he’s ever been shy about things like that.

The low moan reaching his ears sends a tingle down his spine. It isn’t hers, so it must be-

When he risks another look, the insatiable girl has shifted a bit lower on Roger’s body, and after another moment, filled by the telltale crinkling of a condom wrapper, an unmistakable back-and-forth, up-and-down motion starts up, clearly visible even while they’re half-covered by the blanket. Freddie feels himself grow hot, his pulse quickening in his veins. Dreaded, half-buried thoughts claw their way back into his mind. Feelings he has shied away from ever examining too closely.

It’s not that he doesn’t know what Roger sounds like. They had a pretty ingenious system of managing their amorous encounters back when they shared a room, but walls are thin and embarrassing misunderstandings unavoidable. And being on tour together, with its seedy hotels and shared dressing rooms and those girls popping up everyhwere Roger shows his pretty face, has only made the problem more acute. Not that Roger seems to think of it as a problem.

But he’s never been that close, in that small and intimate of a space and without a wall or a door or at least a beaded curtain between them (and that time, mercifully, Freddie had been so impossibly drunk his entire brain capacity was taken up with making sure he wouldn’t vomit on his own pillow). Now, all that is between him and them are a couple of yards of darkness.

His palms grow sweaty and he’s suddenly aware of his trousers getting tighter by the minute. He feels like a creep, spying on them like that. But then, he didn’t ask for it, did he? Aren’t they the ones imposing themselves on him? Aren't they the ones who are being obnoxious, getting it on with all these people around, not knowing who might be listening?

He closes his eyes in a desperate bid to keep his arousal at bay, to give them some privacy, undeserved though it might be. But it only heightens the impact of the noises they’re making. And the images in his mind… He can’t help but picture what it would be like to be the one to draw those sounds out of Roger. To feel him move underneath him. To taste him salty and heavy on his tongue.

Freddie opens his eyes again, even while he’s telling himself the ridiculous lie that he’s not going to look. That he is only doing it to distract himself from the fantasies conjured up by his imagination.

The blanket has fallen down to their hips, preserving at least a shred of their modesty. But what he sees is still too much: Roger’s t-shirt rucked up to his chest, his belly pressing into hers, the clenching of the muscles in his arms as he supports her weight, his face twisting and contorting with pleasure.

It renders Freddie motionless. And yet he is desperate to see more, to see _everything_ , to taste and smell it. He wants it so badly his hands are shaking. It’s pathetic and wrong, but he can't help himself.

Then.

Just when he thinks it can’t get any worse.

Then Roger, in one fell swoop, flips them round.

The pillars of the world crumble. It is smashed out of its orbit, right into the sun, and the flare or white-hot lust that runs through Freddie is so intense he has to bite down on his knuckles to stop himself from crying out.

The girl gasps and Roger shushes her with a kiss, even as he rolls his hips.

Freddie lies there, transfixed and utterly defenceless. He can hear Roger whispering to the girl- not what he says, but that doesn’t mean Freddie’s overheated imagination isn’t filling in the gap. _Feel so good. Yeah, just like this. Want you so much._

He wants to go over there and yank Roger away from that girl, to sink down on his knees in front of him, right here where anyone might see. He wants it more than breathing, more than the adoration of the crowd at the next show.

He already knows that this is what he’s going to picture the next time he gets himself off. The next time he’s pumping into some girl whose name he’ll have forgotten before she’s even out of the door.

The headlights of an oncoming lorry fill up the interior of the bus, throwing the two bodies in stark relief. And just then, the blanket starts to slip.

Acting on instinct, as if he were jumping out of the way of a rogue car at the last second before disaster, Freddie turns his head away. It would be too much to see Roger like that, to see every inch of him exposed. It’s a laughable superstition, like tossing a pinch of spilt salt over his shoulder, but there’s a part of him that believes he might yet be able to rescue himself from drowning as long as he doesn’t see... that.

But he still hears the muffled groans and whimpers, the faint rhythmic creaking of the rickety bunk bed, perhaps even the wet slide of skin on skin if he strains his ears.

All he wants is to slip a hand down to his aching cock. It wouldn’t take long. He’d be finished before they are, he probably wouldn’t even have to open his trousers, wound up as he is.

Roger might notice.

That thought is like a bucket of ice water dumped on the back of his neck.

It’s not that Roger is bigoted. In fact, he’s one of the most open-minded people Freddie knows. But…

_”It was a bit of a blow to us when Bowie made it and the camp thing lost its style and became homosexual.”_

The words are always lurking at the back of his mind, always there to remind not to step over the line if he gets too careless, too complacent. It was just that once, a blip, and Roger had actually cringed when his quote had found its way into print, insisting to anyone who was listening that he hadn’t meant it that way. But there’s turning a blind eye or even not-minding what others do in bed - and then there’s finding out his friend is wanking to fantasies involving him.

Although Freddie could always pretend he was thinking about the girl.

His stomach churns when he imagines the disdain in Roger’s eyes. Despite his easy way with women, there’s a streak of chivalry in him, a protectiveness towards those he lets into his bed and into his heart, even if just for the night, that fills Freddie with a longing as sharp as it is unspeakable.

Would that be a mercy or a further cruelty, that he'd get to choose which transgression his best friend will despise him for?

But then, not even those distressing thoughts can't distract him from the noises coming from the other side of the aisle. The girl is making small, high-pitched sounds in the back of her throat, which seem to spur Roger on, making him forget the need to keep it down. His gasps and harsh breaths are driving Freddie out of his mind. And whenever those are muffled, no matter how much he tries not to picture it, Freddie can _see_ before his mind’s eye how Roger’s tongue is sliding into his lover’s mouth, or how his lips are pressing into the soft skin of her neck.

It seems to go on forever, although it might only have been a minute or two, this personal hell Freddie has landed himself in. A beautiful garden in the desert, overflowing with fresh spring water and ripe fruit, only everything is poisoned and deceptive and will destroy him if he so much as touches it. And Freddie is _parched_.

When Roger finally lets out a choked-off desperate groan, it’s a sound so open and vulnerable it has Freddie pinned like an insect under a magnifying glass. He has no idea how he manages to lie still and not make a sound, even while he feels like his lungs are filled with fire and his eyes stinging with salt.

What comes after is even worse: the low-chuckles and reassuring mumbles, the casual, satisfied intimacy after a good, uncomplicated shag.

The kind Freddie is never going to have.

The thought overwhelms him. It's something he's known for a long time, but right now it's an all-encompassing, all-devouring feeling. It will never end, this struggle. No matter what he does, he will always be the one facing the wall. Pretending. Filled with shame, deep-seated and interminable, even for things he does behind closed doors, or even just imagines to do in the seclusion of his own mind.

Everything is silent again, save for the low hum of the engine. The first greyish tinge of dawn is falling through the gaps in the curtain. Freddie presses his fingers against his eyes. The useless desire that is filling his body is slowly draining away, leaving revulsion and emptiness in its wake.

There were lines he promised himself he wouldn’t ever cross: Never band mates. Never friends. Not even just as a fantasy. He swore it to himself in those moments of clarity when he was too exhausted to pretend not to notice which way his desires swayed. The stakes are high enough as it is, he can’t be risking the things that are the most important to him in life.

He failed tonight. Failed utterly and on almost every level, and he’s going to pay a price for it. He can count himself lucky if it is only this feeling of disgust with himself, so deep and devastating it leaves an ashen taste in his mouth. It’s as if everything is his fault, although he knows it isn't. He balls his hand into a fist and digs his teeth into his lips as sorrow turns into anger. It _isn't_. Because he hasn't asked for _any_ of this.

Sweat that hasn't been sweetened by any sort of pleasure is drying unpleasantly on his skin. The arm he's lying on is falling asleep and his eyes are itchy and raw. Even when they are the ones who are being shameless, it's still he who is hiding.

He turns onto his other side, not trying to be quiet and unobtrusive now. They had more than enough time to get decent again, and there is nothing wrong with turning in his sleep. No one has the right to make something of it. Especially not someone who has just had a shag in public.

No matter how much he wills himself to keep his eyes closed, he can't help but risk another glance. Roger is on his back now. The girl's head is lying on his chest, and he has one hand resting protectively on her back.

Everything inside Freddie draws tightly together at the sight, his eyes prickling with a longing he will not name. Not ever.

It's not even real. She'll be gone and forgotten in a day or two.

But she gets that for tonight. Gets to wallow in it. Flaunt it.

What does he get?

Not one (beautiful, sky-blue) pair of eyes doting on him, but the adoring gaze of thousands as he struts right up the front of the stage. Blazing rows and uproarious laughter afterwards in the dressing room. The white-hot spark of a new idea exploding in his brain, making him scramble for his notebook and setting his nerve-endings of fire. The rolling, ecstatic flow when they play and everything comes together just so.

Perhaps he is here for another kind of passion, another kind of love, he tells himself.

He doesn't have to hide anything in those moments. He learned that early on. As long as he is up there, as long as he is entertaining, he can be whatever he wants.

He is allowed.

Perhaps that is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Roger's quote is from [Record Mirror](https://idata.over-blog.com/3/20/33/28/COUPURE-PRESSE/RecordMirror_11thAug73.jpg), August 11th 1973: _“It was a bit of a blow to us when Bowie made it and the camp thing lost its style and became homosexual”, [Roger] says with an ironic smile. “It isn’t that with us.”_
> 
> For context, David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust had called himself gay in Melody Maker in 1972.
> 
> ...aaaaaand comment moderation is on because someone just had to be an absolute twatwaffle on someone's birthday fic 🙃


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